West Texas congressional race drawing big amounts of outside money

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File/The Associated Press

The race between Republican Francisco "Quico" Canseco (left) and Democrat Pete Gallego has sparked spending by groups including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the National Right to Life Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund.

WASHINGTON — The hotly contested congressional race between tea party freshman Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco and Democratic challenger Pete Gallego has turned into one of the most expensive in the country.

More than $3.3 million in interest groups’ money is pouring in every week to the sprawling, mostly rural district in West Texas. Residents have been inundated with ads from groups like the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the National Right to Life Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund.

The Democratic and Republican national campaign committees are spending a pretty penny on the race, too — more than $1 million each.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said the group has committed $1.5 million to the 23rd District race. Scarpinato said the committee has spent about half of that total and has an additional $800,000 reserved.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved $1.3 million for TV ads in the contest, according to independent expenditure reports on the Federal Election Commission’s website.

According to the most recent report by the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that tracks campaign spending, only eight district races in the country have attracted more outside money.

“What … [the districts] have in common is that they’re competitive, and 90 percent of races are not,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the institute.

Malbin said people will look to the fate of the tea party candidate not only because of the district’s demographics but also because it might reflect the longer-term fate of the Republican Party. The performance of Senate and presidential candidates will also have an influence on the 23rd District race’s outcome, Malbin predicted.

Political analyst David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, a Washington newsletter, rates the Canseco-Gallego race as a toss-up in a state otherwise dominated by Republican candidates, and that makes Gallego’s campaign that much more difficult, he said.

“Democrats threw everything but the kitchen sink at Canseco in 2010,” Wasserman said, adding that it is likely they will do so again in the coming weeks.

The League of Conservation Voters alone has poured in nearly $1 million, with their largest ad buy totaling nearly $600,000. That ad is scheduled to run through Oct. 18. Another ad from the group, which ran last month, compared the Gallego-Canseco showdown to High Noon, lambasting Canseco, R-San Antonio, for voting against clean energy investments.

Canseco campaign spokesman Scott Yeldell said the issues surrounding the congressional election are the same as those surrounding the presidential election, “but with one key difference — energy independence.”

“Our goal is to defeat Canseco in November,” said conservation league spokesman Jeff Gohringer. “He is wildly out of step with his constituents.”

Pecos County GOP chairman Delmon Hodges, who owns the Hodges Oil Co. in Fort Stockton, lamented the current drilling restrictions in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s a pretty sad deal we can’t drill in the gulf,” Hodges said, while noting that Gallego has also attracted the support of the Democratic-leaning Sierra Club.

Gohringer said the league has spent more money on the West Texas House race than on any other in the country.

The Democratic House campaign group’s latest ad buy totals a little more than $236,000, while the GOP group’s most recent purchase comes in at approximately $284,000.

Quarterly campaign finance reports are due to be released Oct. 15. While aides for Gallego, a state representative from Alpine, said they could not provide exact figures, Yeldell said they expect to have received around $540,000 and spent around $480,000 since July 1.

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